julian, this is what house speaker john boehner told politico the day before the election about whether president obama has a mandate on this issue. listen, our majority is going to get re-elected, we'll have as much of a mandate as he will to not raise taxes. what do you say to mr. boehner and his supposed mandate right now? >> well, i think that he said that the election would be a mandate, it was, and he lost. and i think that the important point about the crystal comment is that there's now a wedge in the republican party that the president needs to exploit. there's a wedge between the realist wing and the kind of fa fantasy, childish wing. the realist wing understands the president has a mandate. democrats won the presidency and the senate. we won a majority -- we won the popular vote if you add up the house races as well. look, i think it's in both parties' interest to avoid the fiscal cliff. neither of them want it for a whole host of reasons, including it will be damaging to the economy. we learned recently that president obama in august of 2011 was kind of ready to do a nixon g